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So I was reading\u00a0this article about how K-Mart is dying<\/a>, that\u2019s also overflowing with a bunch of depressing pictures of an unfortunate store, and I can\u2019t help but feel a little bit sad for the once prominent giant in the world of commerce.<\/span><\/p>\n Given the general popularity of Target, it\u2019s no surprise that K-Marts are getting destroyed by them, but what really has to suck for the K is that they\u2019re also getting dominated by Wal-Mart, which basically has the reputation of like, herpes or something not necessarily fatal, but kind of an embarrassment and a thing that people don\u2019t really want to talk about.\u00a0 A lot of people really, really dislike Wal-Mart, and personally I don\u2019t really hate them or anything, I just don\u2019t like the fact that a trip to Wal-Mart guarantees you to be there for at least 30 minutes, if for any reason at all, is that there\u2019s never anyone working the cash registers and the one open line is six customers deep, all of whom are buying 50 items.\u00a0 Wal-Mart is a place synonymous with wasting time, and I do not like to waste time if possible.<\/span><\/p>\n But yeah, K-Mart is losing to them too.\u00a0 Typically I often accuse articles like the aforementioned one of utilizing a bit too much hyperbole in their objective, but it\u2019s hard to argue the points being made in this one, that are backed up in both statistical and photographic evidence.\u00a0 K-Mart really is dying before our very eyes, and it kind of makes me sad.\u00a0 It\u2019s not so much the unfortunate demise of a gigantic, long-standing, well-known brand, or the countless people that will undoubtedly be losing their jobs if\/when they go under.\u00a0 No, I\u2019m far too self-centered to really concern myself about that kind of collateral damage, although it would no doubt suck for all of them too.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the fact that K-Mart is kind of a symbol of nostalgia for me, and to see it crumble and collapse is somewhat a metaphor of the demise of a facet of my childhood.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I remember going to K-Mart with my mom and my sister when I was little; piled into our gray Toyota Celica.\u00a0 Obviously back in the 80s, K-Mart was\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0mother of convenience stores, where families could get everything from clothing, lawn equipment, pharmaceuticals and most importantly, toys.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine how much of my childhood wardrobe might have been purchased at K-Marts growing up, but I can take an educated estimate in that at least 60% of the 50+\u00a0Masters of the Universe<\/em>\u00a0actions figures I hoarded were purchased at K-Marts.\u00a0 Slightly later in life, I\u2019m fairly certain that many of my\u00a0Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/em>\u00a0and WWF action figures were purchased at K-Marts as well.<\/span><\/p>\n In a way, due to supplying my childhood sources of entertainment which helped feed my imagination, I feel indebted and grateful towards the existence of K-Marts.\u00a0 I can\u2019t say I held apathy or disdain for them in my life, but I guess indifference wasn\u2019t much better if I weren\u2019t spending my money at them.\u00a0 By the time I grew to become financially independent, Targets and Wal-Marts were already around, bleeding K-Marts across the country, leading them down the path to slow extinction.<\/span><\/p>\n I remember in 2004 when news came out that Sears and K-Mart were merging, and I was actually slightly interested in it, as opposed to my typical apathy towards anything business related.\u00a0 In a way, I guess I was rooting for this merge to at least lead K-Mart back into somewhat prominence, and at least a strong, sustaining third place in the hierarchy of convenience stores, and not the \u201cthird-is-actually-last\u201d position they appear to be in.\u00a0 Unfortunately, as the graphs in the link go to show, the merge actually didn\u2019t help one iota, and appeared to mark a point where things would gradually begin bleeding a little bit quicker.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s sad to see K-Mart really headed down this slow bleeding to death, but I don\u2019t think anything can really be done about it; it\u2019s seemingly gone too far at this point.\u00a0 Reputation is everything, which is why Target is handily beating Wal-Marts in spite of having over 50% fewer stores.\u00a0 But if Wal-Mart has the reputation of a gigantic devil, then K-Mart\u2019s reputation at this point is the sad, handicapped little brother that in spite of their best efforts, can\u2019t attain the amount of success that its more capable superiors are producing on a regular basis.\u00a0 Nothing short of the perfect storm of a new business model, high-profile celebrity investors and backers, a litany of reputable brands and designers supplying them, and a brand-spanking new identity makeover is going to save K-Mart now.<\/span><\/p>\n But unless that pipe dream actually comes true, it\u2019s going to be a sad day for my nostalgia when I start seeing K-Marts begin having obnoxious, fluorescent signs adorning their stores stating liquidations and store closings.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I was reading\u00a0this article about how K-Mart is dying, that\u2019s also overflowing with a bunch of depressing pictures of an unfortunate store, and I can\u2019t help but feel a little bit sad for the once prominent giant in the world of commerce. Given the general popularity of Target, it\u2019s no surprise that K-Marts are … Continue reading Dying K-Marts and nostalgia<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[131,45,129,15,99],"class_list":["post-37900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-branding","tag-fail","tag-nostalgia","tag-og","tag-reminiscing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37902,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37900\/revisions\/37902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}